If
he were still alive,
my brother and I would probably be speaking, instead of him holding out
on me
until the disease that got him finally got him, and there was I with
egg on my
face, still not speaking to him, still holding out on him as well, full
of
self-righteous rage, unforgiving and glad of it, unfurling it and
waving it
around like a flag that belonged to my country and not his.

*

If
he were still alive,
my brother would probably have rethought his edict that I was not
allowed to
visit his house, supposedly not because of what I was but because of
what the
neighbors would say, would have rescinded his rule of not letting me
see his
children for fear, unstated but firmly held, they would be sexually
corrupted, and
would have permitted me to forgive him for these sins so that I would
not have
to replay them every night when I go to sleep or retell them whenever
anyone asks
how’s your brother, as if we had been and were still in some kind of
contact,
no matter how seldom, so that I would actually have some new facts
(anecdotes?
gossip? tales?) to relate but I don’t, I only have the ones they’ve
already
heard, no no no no and no!, that I
can’t get out of my mind because the cruelty is so fresh and I get such
pleasure being right and wronged.

*

When
my brother was
still alive, I should not have gone to his son’s wedding as a gesture
of good
will, not flown to North Carolina, rented a car and booked a hotel room
on my
own dime and driven to his house to be introduced to all his new
southern
friends as if he and I were still close, which we never were, and
certainly
would not have wound up in the kitchen with him, with him telling me
how glad he
was that I made the trip, that it meant a lot to him, that it meant a
lot to
our mother to see the two of us together, and I’m thinking: yeah, and
all I had
to do was fly a thousand miles, leave my dog and my boyfriend home,
because you’re
my brother and your son is my nephew, as if that meant anything when
you are
the very people–family don’t
laugh--who
have treated me like an outcast.

*

When
my brother was
still alive and my mother had to be moved to the nursing home, I should
have demanded that he help me clear
out her
apartment and not accept his I can’t
as a reason, even though I was to find out later, years later as it
happened,
and as it happened was told the information by him himself, my brother,
who couldn’t
admit to me at the time that he was in agonizing pain and about to go
have
surgery the very week our mother went into the nursing home and her
apartment
had to be cleaned out, leaving it up to me to do it alone, plus arrange
for my
mooching cousins to come over, not to help me clean but to take
whatever they
wanted, which included, of course, my mother’s television set and her
lounge
chair and dishes, but he could have but didn’t tell me right then,
right then
on the phone but instead chose just to stonewall me and say: sorry, I can’t help, and it was snowing
when I had to drive to her apartment and make arrangements with the
Good Will
to come and take the walker, the princess phone, the box of cooking
utensils
and a garbage bag filled with Danielle Steele novels.

*

When
my brother was still
alive and we were still not speaking to each other, I shouldn’t have
listened
to our parents blaming me for it, so that every time they did their what’s with you and your brother routine
I wouldn’t have to say it’s him it’s not
me and watch them sigh as if I was the reluctant one, or have
to put up
with them urging me to speak to him by calling him while I was in their
house
and forcing me to take the phone and them listening while he and I
apparently
had a “conversation,” only it was just a lot of hey
how you doins and what’s
new with yous and who the fuck cared, not him, not me–them, I
suppose, for
sure, and I have to wonder to this day why, what was so important we
had to
talk?

*

If
my brother were
still alive, the memories I have of our early years would not be
tainted with
the sour regrets and missed opportunities they are now, so that I think
about
sleeping in the same room with him and playing records together on
Saturday
mornings, and him carrying me to bed when I fell asleep in the living
room, and
teaching me how to whistle, all of those memories, since he turned out
to be
the kind of closed off, frightened, judgmental guy he turned out to be
and
probably always was only who noticed, who cared about anything like a
person’s
character then, when there were such important things to evaluate
someone by
like who they rooted for and the kind of sneakers they wore and if
their hair
held a wave and if they smoked Kents or Kools, those memories are all
sour now,
sour thoughts that bring me down, that scratch at my insides and make
me angry
sometimes and sometimes sad, the rat, how he ruined things.

*

If
my brother were
still alive he’d of course have the same job he always had, a clean
place, an
office where I would visit him regularly and we would go out and have a
guy’s
lunch, the steam table at McAnn’s Bar & Grill and me just old
enough to
drink a beer when we started that routine, and how it was a kick to
take the
elevator to a high floor and tell the receptionist tell
my brother I’m here and her saying who’re
you? and me saying his
brother, that was something that was working great, didn’t
need fine
tuning, we talked about our parents, felt the same way about both of
them,
hated him/loved her and why was he always either angry or clammed up
and when
was she going to give him a divorce or at least walk out, and I’d mop
up the
roast beef gravy with a hunk of seeded rye like I could not do at home
and he’d
push a napkin at me and tell me to wipe my mouth before we left and
we’d laugh,
then leave and shake hands and I’d watch him go through the revolving
doors
into his building, a guy in a suit with all the guys in suits, and I’d
be
thinking I’ve got abrother
and walk away so pleased my
chest was full, and run across the street clearing my throat and
laughing out
loud.

*

If
my brother were
still alive, it would all be the same is my guess because you are what
you are,
I know where he came from and how he was raised, I know those parents
of his
and what they did and didn’t do, and that’s how you become, that’s your
school.
So how’d I become the guy I became, coming from the same place with the
same
cast of characters and the same rules about life and the same wisdom
and the
same set of what’s right and what’s not and do you lie or tell the
truth, are
you nice or at least pretend to be, do you excel or just go along and
not have
anyone say anything bad about you, behave so well, toe that line so
rigorously
there’s no fault to find. If my brother was still alive, and we were
still
talking, we could maybe discuss this and he could maybe give me his
insights into
how I got to be the way I am instead of being afraid of it, me, but
he’s not
and we’re not, so we won’t and he can’t and I’m stuck, repeating myself
and not
figuring out anything except this persistent buzz of what’d be if he
was still
around.

Barry
Jay
Kaplan's stories have been published in Descant, Kerouac’s
Dog, Bryant
Literary Review, Upstreet, Talking River, Perigee, Amarillo Bay,
Storyglossia,
Brink, Apple Valley Review, Drum, This and others. His stories “His
Wife” and
“India” are Pushcart Prize nominees.“His Wife” is also one of five stories selected for Best
of the Net
Anthology 2008. “A Man of the World” was nominated for the Million
Writers
Award for 2010. Novels include Black Orchid and Biscayne
and non-fiction
books include Actors at Work and The Playwright at Work.